Do you remember when your first story posted?

[HeyAll]

I think Lovecraft made this thread years ago, but anyway, here it is again.

I first posted a story all the way back in 2012. Back then, if I recall, stats on stories were hard to find, or maybe not there yet. If it was, I never saw it. I was unaware of any top lists and things like so I didn't have a gauge on views and votes and so forth. I wrote a story for fun, but I did put great effort into it (except for the fact that I submitted it with a ton of typos and had to re-edit it later because of negative comments, but that's another topic.)

Anyway, days later I remember getting on the computer late morning and seeing a few emails. Lit readers using the messaging system. At first I wasn't sure it was, then it clicked that I had submitted the story days ago. So I went to my profile and saw the favorites and comments, then looked at the stats and first I wasn't sure what I was looking at, with votes and views, it took a while to get the hang of it. I remember being thrilled with the result. It was exciting to have a number of people reading but also commenting. It was a taboo story so the views/comments were plenty.

How about you? Any interesting feelings or thoughts?

 

[AchtungNight]

I first published “Fear, Lust, & Vanity” on Yahoo Groups way back in Feb 2006. Got plenty of praise, kudos. Much the same followed when I reposted it here a few weeks later. Same again when I started posting on AO3.

 

[ElectricBlue]

My first was in 2014, so not all that far behind you. I remember I was keen to figure out how the scoring system worked, so with a few experiments on my own stories I figured out what a View was (a click-in to the first page, but no more useful than that).

One of my earliest stories was a long shaggy dog yarn over twenty or so chapters, which showed me the typical drop off in Views over the first three chapters, and gave me an idea how many people might actually finish a story (my rule of thumb, about one in five).

It also showed me that EH readers can be squicked by Son fucking Dad incest. Who knew? That chapter still takes pride of place as my lowest ever score. I felt sorry for readers, so it's got a squick warning in the comments of the previous chapter. That seems to be working, because that chapter's score has risen over time from 3.86 to where it is now, 4.07.

 

[nice90sguy]

My first story was posted in May 2002. It was an embarrassment, but I found that the polite, useful feedback I received here and in the Story Feedback section motivated me to write more, and become a regular on this forum.

 

[StillStunned]

I posted my first one last June. It scored well - a red H from nearly 100 votes - and attracted a decent number of views for SF/F (about 4k). The only comment was a complaint that it was just a sex scene with no conflict.

I later took it down together with all the other stories in that series.

 

[mildlyaroused]

I posted my first story in March last year. Was quite a strange experience. I'd always been a writer, and had always read erotica, and one night I randomly smashed it all out almost without any breaks. I think I went to bed at 4am. Still have no clue why I chose that night.

Something I loved about that first submission was the immediacy of other, real people reading my work. It's always a long process when done traditionally, and there is something very attractive in the fact that writers here can immediately have a wide audience reading their work which is so often private to all but a few eyes.

 

[lovecraft68]

My first story is 'Almost Perfect" published on 5/13/2010 and wow, it was far from that in every way.

It went in BDSM and is a femdom piece. It had an H for a while, but now is barely over 4. I believe if it were released today in a category that has gone from more accurate BDSM to non con and "bitch has to get hers" stories it wouldn't even see a 4.

I recall back then you saw the red heart when someone faved it, then the broken heart when it was unfaved. Lit changed that years ago because the thin skinned couldn't handle seeing the broken heart. Now if someone unfavs you or a story you'd only know if you obsessively hawk over all your stats.

I understood the scoring system and H off the bat, and I think I stumbled on the top fav author list by accident after I'd been here a few months. Manyfeathers, Alwayswantedto and Selena Kitt were battling it out for that spot along with mega troll Scouries. Back then top authors had maybe 6k favs because people were limited to how many authors and stories they could fav, but once that limit was erased the numbers became much higher.

 

[Pabiporffor]

First one was a very short account of cheating on a BF with a random drunk stranger in a pub toilet. I wrote it mostly as a tester to see how LITs upload system functioned and whether or not it would get any reads before I committed time to better stories.

 

[ronde]

I posted my first story on 1/27/2001 and was surprised that it was rated higher than I thought it would be.

 

[KeithD]

My first one, “Blue Roses Tattoo” (Blue Roses Tattoo - Mind Control - Literotica.com) was posted in the Mind Control category under my sr71plt account in 2006.

It was a scene that had long been in my mind, inspired by a scene in a book, one of those scenes one dogeared and kept the book in the nightstand for frequent checking.

I remember it as connected to one of my frequent go-to erotica scene reads. I was surprised by how often it was read in relation to how my books were doing in the marketplace and was also gratified that rgraham666, who was one of the daily “notable stories to read” reviewers here at the time—they had a permanent thread at the top of the AH to post to, picked the story out to highlight. I had been invited by my now-publisher and coauthor, Sabb, to post to Literotica, and this experience encouraged me to continue to submit here.

Rgraham666 comment:
“Nice
A well written little story.
The author did a good job with the central character, small town girl trapped there.
I quite enjoyed this.
Well done.”

 

[Djmac1031]

My very first story, The Doctor Is In... Me, published here 8/18/21

It's still one of my most popular and most viewed stories. The only three beating it in views are my incest entries.

It's a strange little story in that it's all about prostate play and yet that's not really my kink. And it's the first and last time I've written about it.

Still, i look back at it fondly, particularly because of the wonderful feedback it received almost immediately, that certainly encouraged me to keep writing.

I've come a long way since that story. Style wise, story wise, quality wise, etc.

But I'm still really proud of it, even if some of the rough edges still make me cringe sometimes.

 

[Omenainen]

Mine was in May of 2020, amidst covid lockdowns, so I really needed the escapism. I had no idea what to expect and I remember reloading it, going “omg 400 people have read it! …500… 600… 700…” it all felt like a lot. I got a few positive comments and was hooked. Not long after that, I found the forums and for wrapped up in this social side of smut writing that I had no idea existed and much less that I wanted it in my life.

 

[MelissaBaby]

I submitted the first chapter of My Fall and Rise late in the evening on the Fourth of July, 2017. I was so anxious that after I sent it, I threw up. I thought it was at least even odds that I'd be excoriated and told I didn't belong here.

I waited all the next day, refreshing the browser over and over again. Nothing. The day after that, I got the notification it had been rejected for formatting and punctuation errors. I stayed up half the night, reading everything I could find in the FAQ about punctuation. (The period goes outside the quotation mark? Who knew? I'd been a voracious reader my whole life and never noticed that.)

I sent in a corrected version the next day and it was accepted. I went to my author's page that first morning. The score was around 4.40, much higher that I had hoped for. I saw that I had a comment. I held my breath as I clicked on it.







I did continue. The next chapter got fewer views, but earned my first red H. At this time, the thirteenth, concluding chapter is sitting on a score of 4.89. It took a couple of years, but that first one eventually creeped up to get a red H of its own.

So, I guess I did belong here.

 

[OffNSFW]

I started writing for Literotica on a whim during the pando.

It was a mixture of things, really. My partner and I were having marital difficulties. (Still are; we're working on it and it's been very positive.) I needed an outlet for my admittedly above-average libido and sexual creativity. I thought about starting an OnlyFans or something similar, but my house is too cluttered for that. Making porn that people can read seemed a little more agreeable to me.

The pando is also when I came out as queer. (Nothing to do with the aforementioned marital difficulties. She's been very accepting.) Writing for this site has enabled me to experiment with different genders, kinks, relationship styles, etc. from the safety of my own imagination.

I'm also not getting any younger, and I'm getting wistful. A lot of experiences, wonderful and painful and in between, are finding their way into my stories as a sort of memorial for the things I've been through.

My first story, "Teamwork - A Gangbang Trilogy Pt. 01" went up on 7/11/2020, a scant couple weeks after I told my partner I was queer. Looking back at it, some of it's clever, and some of it's "clever." I had no idea what I was doing, but that might have been an asset.

I got one comment on it: "Please post part 2 soon this was amazing!" Whoever this anonymous user was, you have no idea what this meant to me. You might be the reason why I've kept writing this stuff.

 

[SimonDoom]

My first story, The Holiday Party, was published on Dec. 8, 2016, on impulse. I had been working for several weeks on what I thought would be my first story, In The Hallway, but at the last minute I decided to enter the Winter Holiday contest, and I began and finished The Holiday Party within 24 hours.

At the time, I was a bit chagrined at its inauspicious reception, but in retrospect it makes sense. It's one of my least impressive stories, in my opinion. Just a short erotic lark that I snuck under the contest deadline, barely. In the Hallway, which I published one week later, had a much better reception and to this day is one of my highest-rated stories.

Despite it being a somewhat blah story, I was happy to get it done. After years of thinking about writing an erotic story for Literotica, I finally did it.

 

[MetaBob]

The period goes outside the quotation mark? Who knew?

It's a squishy rule. Traditionally, in American sources, the period goes inside the quotation marks, but in British usage it formerly went outside and sometimes still does.

"The only emperor", writes Wallace Stevens, "is the emperor of ice cream."

Traditional British usage also reverses the use of single and double quotes, though please take note that in the University of Sussex page I just cited and linked, the same can be true of commas: These days, the Brits have largely surrendered to American practice on both fronts.

I personally go with the American practice of putting the period inside the double quotes except in two circumstances:

1. You're actually quoting someone else's words and they did not put punctuation at the end of whatever you're quoting, as is the case for the Wallace Stevens quote I cited earlier.
2. You are placing a single-quoted phrase or a word ending in an apostrophe (or worse, both) inside a double-quoted phrase with both ending at the same time. I find it grating when I see multiple quotation marks in a row, so I'll put the single quote first, then the period, then the double quote.

No one seems to have objected, including Laurel and my publisher, though perhaps now that I've drawn attention to my practice, someone will.

 

[MrPixel]

Mine was in May of 2020...

As was mine. The story was a recollection of events at a seriously raunchy swinger motel, only slightly enhanced from the reality of nearly 40 years ago. My reward was one hell of a comment (485 words!) basically lambasting me for verb tense changes, although he did compliment on the eroticism versus blow-by-blow detail.

What surprised me, however, was the discovery I could actually write erotica. It has withstood the test of time, with 16K reads and a 4.12.

 

[MelissaBaby]

No one seems to have objected, including Laurel and my publisher, though perhaps now that I've drawn attention to my practice, someone will.

I suspect that Laurel is going to give more scrutiny to a first submission by a novice writer.

 

[MetaBob]

I suspect that Laurel is going to give more scrutiny to a first submission by a novice writer.

I'm sure that's true, but I was using my rules for quotation marks and punctuation back when I submitted my first story here in 2018: the Prologue to "Were-Tigress", and Laurel let it stand. (What remains here is a slightly revised version I submitted a year later.)

 

[StillStunned]

I'm really not sure that Laurel cares that much about the precise rules of punctuation. As long as you don't have sentences that run on for three Lit pages and put commas in strange places or use multiple exclamation marks (a sure sign of a sick mind, as Terry Pratchett pointed out), then I think she's happy to let it slide.

I've seen stories here by authors who have dozens of works to their names that have me itching to activate Track Changes and charge them a massive hourly rate. The rules for quotation marks are probably very low on the list of important issues.

 

[MelissaBaby]

I'm really not sure that Laurel cares that much about the precise rules of punctuation. As long as you don't have sentences that run on for three Lit pages and put commas in strange places or use multiple exclamation marks (a sure sign of a sick mind, as Terry Pratchett pointed out), then I think she's happy to let it slide.

I've seen stories here by authors who have dozens of works to their names that have me itching to activate Track Changes and charge them a massive hourly rate. The rules for quotation marks are probably very low on the list of important issues.

That was not the only issue she dinged me for, but it was on her list.

 

[MetaBob]

The overwhelming positive takeaway from your initial rejection seems to be that Laurel's standards helped you become a better writer, while so many other drop-ins here complain about their story not getting published when the usual reason often includes 'too many grammatical errors.'

 

[mildlyaroused]

I'm surprised to hear of stories rejected on the grounds of grammar and punctuation. I've seen hundreds on this site that I wouldn't have expected to pass the test, with that prerequisite in mind. Often short vignettes by new authors have almost no correct grammar in the dialogue: missing or wrong punctuation, incorrect use of tags, wrong capitalisation, etc, etc.

 

[intim8]

How about you? Any interesting feelings or thoughts?

I published my first story here a year and a half ago. "Our New Nude Life" - College couple ponder the shape of their future together for the Nude Day contest. After reading for probably 12 or 15 years, the contest was what finally got me to sign up and become more than a reader.

It's still my fifth best rated story at 4.72. I reread it yesterday, and I'm still pretty happy with it (aside from some editing issues). In fact, most of my stories, they seem better now than I thought they were when I submitted them.

I started writing for Literotica on a whim during the pando.

I did too, but only by coincidence. The pando barely affected me since I've worked from home for a decade or more, and don't go out much.

 

[_Lynn_]

My first story went up in 2007. I knew nothing about writing and it showed. But after some encouragement from a few authors (no longer here), I improved.